Grimes
Geidi Primes

This Claire Boucher from Vancouver, who debuted in the 2010s with Geidi Primes, had immense potential, a crystal-clear talent. She could have done anything with it.

She had - and still has - the voice. A delightful and childish angelic, pure white voice. Whispered both on the relatively low notes and on the falsettos, very high, sometimes very tight and thin, often launched into mystical-Asian free-form deliriums. Enhanced by a childlike lisping and soft sibilance. There wasn't the unattainable technical skill of Elizabeth Fraser, of course, but there was more than a touch of her hypnotic charm and the same approach to singing, to exploiting all the possibilities in the range of her voice. After all, the Cocteau Twins were among Grimes’ declared influences, and in the omnipresent vocal layerings as an integral part of the composition, they could be heard loud and clear. She also added lots of reverb, and that too contributed, as always, to the ethereal dreamy pop stratosphere that envelops this record.

She had the style: a vegan eco-friendly amazon princess, sci-fi accessorized with changing hair colors, improbable nail polishes, a face and a slenderness that subtracted from her already few (twenty-two) years. One of the most successful self-produced combinations between innocent Susanna-All-Panna and aggressive side-shaved haircut with a blowjob fringe, that many cosplayer-suicides can only dream of.

But Grimes knew how to be more than an eccentric dream pop singer clearly above the technical-expressive average of dream pop singing, since Fraser. And that would have been enough. She was a postmodern singer-songwriter, going around on a high with a microphone, synthesizers, and various drum machines, doing everything herself. As only great talents, and the completely crazy, can afford to do.

She was an eclectic composer, imaginative and outside every schema, who evidently thought in trips, and Geidi Primes is the planet Giedi Prime from Dune and throughout the album there are scattered references to Herbert's sci-fi classic. Even the moniker is taken from an artist who makes works like this. Ah, but don't expect a cliché sci-fi album with retro cosmic sounds. Grimes invented, on solid derivative foundations - hence my saying "postmodern singer-songwriter" - her deep musical space. The Cocteau Twins have already been mentioned, they were everywhere and in the uranium post-punk of avi, among Fraser, Blondie, and Chinese folk songs. Then minimal setups, simple and rudimentary rhythms, standard synths set on the epic ethereal eighties; but also traditional winds and strings and sampling. Like Gambang, which borrows a glitchy (sorry) sample from who knows where and plays delightfully on vocalizations, like a female counterpart to Dirty Beaches; moreover, where Hungtai sings very American with his oriental features, Boucher sings oriental with her Canadian features. It must be the proximity to Asia of British Columbia, as I also mentioned here. But that's not it.

But above all the crystal-clear beauty of Rosa, which stands out for its nighttime deep space atmosphere, rising over a single baritone loop, I believe synthetic, and a silly rhythm. Layers upon layers of voice and choirs uuuuuh very Bilinda Butcher - and how lovely the surname consonance, though perhaps Boucher should be pronounced the French way, I'll ask - with sudden chilling vocal stalls, really. Or the cosmic march soaked in big synths of Grisgirs that for its sound can remind of certain experimental trip-hop stuff like the best Archive, the less earthly ones. Or episodes dangerously balancing between medieval-like melody and flashy chart-topping pop of some years ago, like Feyd Rautha Dark Heart, where nonetheless Grimes flaunts unexpected lows, which if I didn't know it's a she I would even have doubts (as happened with Cocteau Twins, which I unsuspectingly listened and thought Fraser was two singers, both very skilled). But also the final pair Shadout Mapes and the glitches of Beast Infection, i.e., taking the soundtracks of your favorite Shanghai or Hong Kong restaurant, removing the peasant epic, pipes, and launeddas, and launching them into space. As well as in frank pain-in-the-neck passages, Sardaukar Levenbrech, which still retains traditional acoustic instruments but accelerates the classic bucolic andamento and adds a very naïve tum clap. But immediately after, the melancholic nursery rhyme of Zoal, Face Dancer sounds exactly like what I would have hoped for in an evolution or convincing contamination of twee-pop.

And all this in the imperfect tense, because perhaps, in the span of five years, we lost Grimes. She signed with Roc Nation of that lucky him of a Jay Z who is nothing else. Like the Touché Amoré, exactly. She spectacularly missed a track, because the new Go is just unlistenable, it sounds like Skrillex and goodness me. She writes stuff for Rihanna. Opens dates for Lana Del Rey. What a pity.